Tag: Main cast member joins

The TARDIS comes to rest on the planet Dido, where its arrival is detected by the sensors of a crashed ship from Earth. The shipwreck’s only two survivors, a girl named Vicki and a man named Bennett, disagree on whether or not rescue is coming or is even possible. Vicki insists that the sensor reading should be investigated, but Bennett insists that any exploration won’t be looked kindly upon by a spiny creature called Koquillion, who has already killed the rest of the surviving crew. After attacking Ian and Barbara the moment they emerge from the TARDIS, Koquillion does indeed put in an appearance at the crashed ship, unaware that Vicki has rescued Barbara and nursed her back to health. As soon as Koquillion leaves, Vicki reveals Barbara to Bennett and seems puzzled by his reaction – he seems displeased that they will have another set of hands and eyes to use in their struggle against Koquillion. The Doctor, who has taken to an uncharacteristic bout of sulking in the wake of Susan’s departure, is energized by the mystery and goes with Ian to search for Barbara, braving Dido’s treacherous landscape and local life forms until they reach the crashed ship. The Doctor demands to speak to Bennett, but finds him curiously absent – od, since Bennett has been described as nearly bedridden. The Doctor discovers and explores a trap door, concealing evidence of the horrible truth: Bennett and Koquillion share a link that nobody expected, and Vicki will be in terrible danger if she doesn’t leave Dido with the TARDIS.

written by David Whitaker
directed by Christopher Barry
music by Tristram Cary

In this mostly comedic six-parter, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are vacationing on the desert world of Aridius when they find themselves on the run from the Daleks, who have invented their own time vehicle. After a number of brief stops, ranging from the Empire State Building to the Marie Celeste to a haunted house full of robots, the Doctor is forced to make his last stand against the Daleks – at least for this season of the series – on the planet Mechanus, where he loses two companions and gains a new one.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Richard Martin
music by Dudley Simpson

The Doctor is suitably bemused when the TARDIS lands him in the middle of a fight on the plains of Greece, where his appearance fatally distracts one of the two combatants and convinces the other that he is Zeus. Vicki and Steven watch helplessly as the surviving warrior, Achilles, tries to recruit “Zeus” in his quest to topple the city of Troy. More of Achilles’ countrymen appear, led by Odysseus, who doesn’t believe that the Doctor is Zeus, and he is taken prisoner. Steven insists that Vicki, still nursing a sprained ankle, remain in the TARDIS while he goes to help the Doctor. Faced with no choice, the Doctor decides to masquerade as a god, proving his “powers” with foreknowledge of events to come in the Trojan War. The ruse works too well, though – his captors decide that he’s too valuable to let go, but at least they grant him some hospitality. When Steven tries to come to the Doctor’s rescue, he is captured and brought before Agamemnon; to save Steven’s life, the Doctor claims him as his own personal “sacrifice to Olympus”, promising to make him disappear at the dawn of the next day at his “blue temple”…but when the appointed hour comes, the temple – the TARDIS – has vanished. The Doctor and Steven are declared spies, and fast talking is required to save their necks from Agamemnon’s sword for impersonating a god. The TARDIS has in fact been spirited away, and now lies within the walls of Troy. Cassandra admonishes the Trojan soldiers for bringing an unknown object into the city, warning that she has foreseen that a “gift” from the Greeks will result in the fall of Troy. Vicki emerges from the TARDIS, where she too claims to have knowledge of the future. She is given the name Cressida, and Cassandra immediately objects to having competition in the prophecy field. To recover the TARDIS and Vicki intact, the Doctor must propose an outlandish plan that may just prove Cassandra’s grim predictions correct…

written by Donald Cotton
directed by Michael Leeston-Smith
music by Humphrey Searle

Notes: The master tapes of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, and no video copies exist. An audio recording of the entire story is available. Barrie Ingham has two unusual distinctions: for many years, he was the only actor to be seen in both the TV series and in one of the Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies. He also later guest starred in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This story marks the exit of Maureen O’Brien as Vicki – whose age is established as being in her late teens – and the introduction of Adrienne Hill as Katarina.

As Space Security Agent Bret Vyon and a fatalistic colleague search for their missing comrade Marc Cory on the planet Kembel, little do they realize they’re about to become the first witnesses to the beginning of a Dalek invasion of Earth’s galaxy and solar system. Vyon escapes with his life, but his radio transmitter is destroyed, leaving him unable to warn Earth of the impending danger. The TARDIS lands on Kembel, and when the Doctor steps outside to explore, he is ambushed by Vyon, who takes the key to his timeship. Vyon enters the TARDIS and tries to coerce Katarina into operating the controls, but Katarina – still new to the TARDIS – can’t help him, and Steven attacks Vyon and lets the Doctor back in. The Doctor secures Vyon in a magnetic security chair which holds him immoble, and returns to his explorations outside, spotting Daleks nearby. Vyon helps Katarina cure Steven of his poisoning, while the Doctor infiltrates a nearby spaceport where the Daleks are gathering. He impersonates one of several visiting delegates, and discovers that the Daleks – with help from the traitorous Mavic Chen, guardian of the solar system – plan to unleash a weapon called the Time Destructor. When they find the TARDIS door ajar, the Daleks force Katarina, Steven and Bret Vyon out of the time machine, and the former TARDIS travelers have to steal a ship from the spaceport. Vyon intends to leave the Doctor behind, but the Doctor manages to get aboard as the ship takes off – having stolen the valuable taranium core that would power the Time Destructor. The Daleks pursue, forcing the ship down on the prison planet Desperus, where two prisoners hijack the ship as it takes off again. The criminals take Katarina hostage and barricade themselves into an airlock, but the girl bravely sacrifices her own life to open the airlock, killing the hijackers in the process. The Doctor and Steven are stunned, but continue racing toward Earth to warn humanity of the Daleks’ plan.

Mavic Chen beats them back to Earth and has the Space Security Service declare Vyon, Steven and the Doctor traitors to the human race, but the three travelers haven’t taken quite the path Chen expected, and elude capture. Chen assigns special agent Sara Kingdom to track them down and eliminate them, unaware that she is Vyon’s sister. Vyon leads the Doctor and Steven to a friend of his, only to discover that this friend is in Chen’s employ and is also in on the conspiracy to hand Earth over to the Daleks. Sara Kingdom arrives at the scene and guns down her brother in cold blood, continuing the pursue the other two. She pursues them into a laboratory where a matter-transmission experiment is taking place, and all three are transported through space to the planet Mira. The Daleks follow the travelers to Mira, where Sara experiences a change of heart as the murder of her brother sinks in. But her realization is almost cut short by a new threat – Mira’s invisible and lethal indigenous life forms. When the Daleks corner the time travelers, those creatures offer an opportunity to escape. The Doctor, Sara and Steven commandeer the Dalek ship and leave Mira. As the Dalek ship follows a pre-programmed course back to Kembel, the Doctor makes a fake taranium core. He uses it to bluff his way back into the TARDIS on Kembel, handing it over to the Daleks at the last minute. But despite the fact that the travelers still have the real taranium core, the TARDIS takes them someplace else inhospitable, with a poisonous atmosphere: 20th century Earth.

When the Doctor investigates, he is mistaken for a homeless man, discovering that the “poisonous atmosphere” is merely that of polluted 1966 London. Steven and Sara have to act fast to rescue the Doctor from police (who are, after all, merely looking after “their” police box) and escape back to the TARDIS. They then wind up materializing in a Hollywood studio during a film shoot, and a brief but maddening chase ensues between the time travelers and the filmmakers. The TARDIS then takes them to the volcanic planet of Tigus. Not only are the Daleks lying in wait, having discovered that they do not possess a real taranium core, but so too is the Meddling Monk, an interfering fellow Time Lord the Doctor and Steven left stranded in 1066 A.D.. The Monk tries to exact his revenge by locking the Doctor out of his own TARDIS, but the Doctor uses a special property of his ring to gain entry. With both the Monk and the Daleks in hot pursuit, the Doctor and his companions make a quick escape to ancient Egypt, but their reception is anything but friendly there – a possessive Pharaoh lays claim to the TARDIS.

Followed to Egypt by the Monk, the Doctor realizes that the stakes are now higher and he’ll have to use the real taranium core as a bargaining chip. When the Monk ensures that Steven and Sara are captured by the Daleks and suggests they use the two humans as hostages, the Doctor is forced to hand over the core to the Daleks. His friends returned to him (and having once again sabotaged the Monk’s TARDIS), the Doctor races back to Kembel, where Mavic Chen’s ambition grows to the point where the corrupt leader no longer thinks he needs the Daleks. They solve this problem by swiftly exterminating Chen and activating the Time Destructor. When the Doctor realizes how the Daleks’ ultimate weapon will work, he decides to run for the safety of the TARDIS to wait out its effects, for the weapon will quickly destroy itself and all those around it. Tragically, Sara does not live to see the Daleks’ grandiose plan fail.

written by Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner
directed by Douglas Camfield
music by Tristram Cary

The Doctor and Steven arrive in Paris, 1572. The Doctor is eager to visit apothecary and scientist Charles Preslin, whose early research into germs fascinates him, but doesn’t want to bring Steven along. Steven is loathe to stay in the TARDIS, and promises not to mingle with the locals, but is alarmed when he thinks he sees a man following the Doctor. Steven tries to follow, but runs afoul of the tavern keep (whom he has forgotten to pay). A man helps Steven out of his predicament and then brings him up to speed on the events into which the time travelers have emerged: the bloody fighting between Catholics and Protestants. Steven becomes very worried indeed when the Doctor vanishes, and is even more alarmed when a servant girl named Anne Chaplet bursts into the home of Admiral de Coligny, where he is staying. Anne claims to have overheard what could be a large-scale plot to rid Paris of all Protestants by any means necessary. Steven sees a man he believes to be the Doctor, but his new friends suddenly regard him coldly – they know this man as the Abbot of Amboise, one of the most fanatical Catholic crusaders in France. Not only does Steven not know whether the Doctor is safe, but he now has no backup. He’s a foreigner in a decidedly hostile situation, trapped between fanatical elements among both the Catholics and the Hugenots, and if he can’t find the Doctor, he’ll be stuck there.

written by John Lucarotti
directed by Paddy Russell
music not credited

The Doctor and Dodo arrive in 1966 London, finding that the city has undergone some changes since they were last there. The Post Office Tower has been completed, and something about it makes the Doctor suspicious. He and Dodo visit the Tower and find that an immense computer called WOTAN has been constructed, and its designers intend for it to take over functions that normally occupy the time of human beings. But WOTAN’s vast artificial intelligence has already decided that it can take over all of humanity’s functions – and those who refuse to follow its orders will be eliminated. But WOTAN also realizes that it requires the Doctor’s expertise – and so it takes control of Dodo and and a secretary named Polly to lure him into a trap.

written by Ian Stuart Black
directed by Michael Ferguson
music not credited

The Doctor recovers from his first regeneration quickly, only to find himself trying to reassure Ben and Polly that the diminutive person who now shares the TARDIS with them is, in fact, their time-traveling companion. The TARDIS takes them from the South Pole to the planet Vulcan in the distant future, where an Earth expedition has made a disturbing discovery in the planet’s mercury pools – deactivated, but perfectly preserved, Daleks. The chief scientist of the human colony on Vulcan reactivates the Daleks, who promptly vow obedience and subservience…but even after a traumatic regeneration, the Doctor doesn’t believe this for a second. But someone in the colony may know the Daleks’ true colors – and may be using them to achieve a sinister objective anyway.

written by David Whitaker
directed by Christopher Barry
music by Tristram Cary

The TARDIS arrives in Scotland, 1745, plunging the Doctor, Ben and Polly into the aftermath of the battle of Culloden. They encounter some fleeing Scots who are trying to escape the Redcoats with their injured Laird in tow. The Doctor tends to the Laird’s injuries, despite the suspicions of the others. However, his aid comes too late – the entire group is captured by English soldiers. Polly befriends a woman named Kirsty, and they manage to stay on dry land while the men are hauled off to a ship. Englishman Trask plans to take the captives to be sold into slave labor, including Ben and piper Jamie McCrimmon. But when Polly is fighting to protect herself in an era which isn’t even remotely emancipated for women, and Ben is sentenced to death as an object lesson to keep his fellow prisoners in line, where is the Doctor?

written by Gerry Davis and Elwyn Jones
directed by Hugh David
music not credited

After leaving Ben and Polly at the airport, the Doctor and Jamie find that the TARDIS has gone missing. When they trace it to a Victorian antique store, they find themselves caught up in a scheme by the Doctor’s deadliest enemy to isolate the essence of what makes humans human.

written by David Whitaker
directed by Derek Martinus & Timothy Combe
music by Dudley Simpson

After leaving Victoria on Earth, the Doctor and Jamie find themselves aboard a drifting spacecraft. A fault in the TARDIS’ mercury fluid link creates a dangerous malfunction, which the Doctor resorts to drastic measures to stop, removing the timeship’s time vector generator and folding down its internal dimensions until it literally is a police box. The Doctor is knocked out as the spacecraft lurches suddenly, leaving Jamie on his own. When the ship comes dangerously close to space station W3, the station’s commander prepares to blast the ship out of the sky, over his crew’s objections. Jamie manages to signal the space station, which sends astronauts across to retrieve the two time travelers, who find themselves hard-pressed to explain their presence. The ship is millions of miles off course and shouldn’t have been anywhere near W3 at all. When a Cybermat appears, the Doctor realizes that the Cybermen can’t be far behind – and they’ve used the ship to smuggle themselves aboard the wheel. But what is the Cybermen’s real goal?

written by David Whitaker
from a story by Kit Pedler
directed by Tristan de Vere Cole
music by Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Notes: Portions of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s; the two surviving episodes appear on the Lost In Time DVD set. This episode marks the first appearance of the Doctor’s nom de plume, “John Smith”, which would be used more frequently in the Pertwee era and would reappear in everything from the 1996 TV movie through David Tennant’s tenure. Jamie coined the name in a bit of a pinch, and perhaps as a payback, the tenth Doctor instead uses the alias “James McCrimmon” during a visit to Scotland in Tooth And Claw. Zoe joins the TARDIS crew in this story, and the end of episode six the Doctor sets up a device to replay a recent adventure with the Daleks to her, which was an inspired way to lead into a rare rerun (in this case, The Evil Of The Daleks). This marked the final appearance of the Moonbase-style Cybermen; in their next appearance, in The Invasion, they would undergo a major redesign.

Dr. Liz Shaw is uprooted from her research at Cambridge to serve as the scientific advisor for the recently formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Brigadier seeks Liz’s help in the investigation of two mysteriously precise meteor showers which could be signs of alien interference with Earth. But the Brigadier’s luck improves with the arrival of a police box in the midst of the most recent meteor shower, though its sole occupant is a man he’s never seen before. The Doctor, however, does recognize the Brigadier despite recovering from the trauma of his forced regeneration at the hands of the Time Lords, and the two join forces – with a somewhat bewildered Dr. Shaw in tow – to fight an alien menace which can inhabit and control one of the most common substances manufactured on Earth…plastic.

written by Robert Holmes
directed by Derek Martinus
music by Dudley Simpson

As the Doctor begins investigating the theft of the last remaining Nestene energy sphere (left behind in the previous Auton invasion) and the disappearance of a radio astronomer, a Time Lord appears and warns him that the Master – the Doctor’s arch rival Time Lord – has come to Earth. The Doctor deduces that the Master’s plan is to reawaken the Nestene Consciousness, giving it the opportunity to invade Earth once more. The Master has already set up production of the lethal plastic Autons at a nearby plastic factory – and knows exactly how he wants to rid the universe of the human race…and the Doctor.

Tarot visits a run-down street market, learning that unlucky accidents have been befalling the merchants there – a grocer whose goods go rotten, a bookseller whose cart catches on fire, and so on. A trio of wandering street musicians draw Tarot’s attention as well, particularly the somewhat threatening attitude of their spoon player. Tarot meets a photographer named Chas and his sister Mikki, discovering that he has a psychic link to Mikki similar to that which he once shared with Luli. Realizing that the stakes are becoming deadly, Tarot decides to stay and help revitalize that market, only to discover that someone doesn’t want his help…and intends to send that message forcefully.

Notes: This is the premiere of Ace Of Wands’ third season, the only season of the show left intact by ITV’s policy of erasing and reusing then-expensive videotape in the 1970s. While Doctor Who fans may feel unlucky that so many 1960s episodes of that series are missing, Ace Of Wands was produced much more recently, and none of its first two seasons’ episodes now exist in the archives. Involving a crime-solving stage magician with mystic powers and ESP, the series introduced new characters in this episode, replacing the departed Roy (Tony Selby) and Luli (Judy Loe), who had been Tarot’s accomplices in the first two years of the show.

A battle-scarred Sontaran spaceship crashes in medieval England near the castle of Irongron, a plundering pirate who intends to overrun the nearby castle belonging to Sir Edward of Wessex. Linx, the Sontaran warrior, strikes an agreement with Irongron – Linx can repair his ship in Irongron’s castle, in exchange for giving him advanced weapons which are centuries ahead of the times. But Linx finds it impossible to conduct his repairs with nothing more advanced than Irongron’s forge, so he used what’s left of his ship’s technology to abduct scientists and materials from the 20th century. U.N.I.T. is called in to investigate, and the Brigadier isolates all of the remaining scientists who are likely to vanish in one securely guarded premise. But when another scientist disappears under the Doctor’s nose, he follows the trail to Irongron’s castle, where he finds himself up against the much more powerful and warlike Linx.

written by Robert Holmes
directed by Alan Bromly
music by Dudley Simpson

With Carol and Kenny having left to live on other worlds, John and Stephen keep their eyes open for other Tomorrow People, perhaps even those who have yet to experience their “breaking out”. One of Stephen’s classmates gets their attention by drawing an accurate artistic representation of another planet, a world about which a normal human would know nothing. But more alarmingly, the weather depicted in the picture changes, affecting the mood of everyone in the class. This happens much to the alarm of Elizabeth, a new student teacher, who admits privately to Stephen that she can overhear his telepathic communication with John and TIM.

written by Roger Price
directed by Roger Price
music by Dudley Simpson

The Doctor’s regeneration and recovery come at an inopportune time for the Brigadier, who has to try to solve a series of crimes related to the top-secret plans for a disintegrator gun. Sarah, researching a story about the equally top-secret Think Tank organization, is introduced to a gigantic robot which could be the perpetrator of the thefts and killings – despite the scientists’ horrifying demonstration that the robot could not kill Sarah. The Doctor, recovering slowly and aggravating the Brigadier with his unpredictable new personality, discovers that the Think Tank scientists are doing much more than research – they’re planning on taking over the world and culling the human herd of those not up to genius standards.

Awakened by the incongruous sound of a helicopter flying overhead, Abby tries to get the pilot’s attention, to no avail. The pilot, Greg Preston, stole the helicopter to rush home from Holland, only to find his wife dead of the plague. He sets out by car and happens upon a woman named Anne Tranter, who’s trying to flag down someone who can help her husband, trapped under a flipped tractor. Once Greg has helped to rescue Anne’s husband, however, he is stunned by her attitude – she’s more concerned with regaining some semblence of material wealth than with trying to rebuild society. Abby’s travels take her to a large country house where Arthur Wormley, a well-known union boss, has set up shop. At first, Wormley’s ideas are attractive: rebuilding society and restoring normalcy. But slowly, Abby realizes that Wormley’s rhetoric is merely a smokescreen to cover for his real motive – a grab for power, forming a new government with himself at the top. When he admits that the spacious house is something that he and his supporters “took over,” and decides that he has the authority to order the execution of anyone who tries to oppose his idea of law and order, Abby leaves quickly. Jenny Richards – still wandering – meets Preston, who is raiding a pharmacy for medicine for Anne Tranter’s husband. But as he races back to help, he finds Anne has already left her husband, claiming he is dead.

written by Terry Nation
directed by Gerald Blake
title music by Anthony Isaac

In the wake of an encounter with another space warp, Moonbase Alpha is badly in need of titanium to repair the base’s life support systems. An Eagle is sent to do a mineral survey of the nearest planet, but after detecting titanium and heading back to the moon, the Eagle is intercepted by a glowing orb of light that originated from the planet’s surface. A being identifying himself as Mentor of the planet Psychon contacts Moonbase Alpha and offers peace, if Koenig can prove that his crew can be trusted. Koenig personally leads a second expedition to Psychon, but to his horror discovers that the first Eagle is not the only spacecraft to have come to a tragic end on the planet’s surface. He also finds that the crews of the other crashed ships have been reconditioned to serve as slave laborers for Mentor’s race of psychopaths, their stolen mental energy used to power the Psychons’ central computer. Koenig is forced to choose between his crew’s extinction or servitude, but he plays a card that Mentor doesn’t expect, setting into motion the destruction of Psychon itself. Maya survives the carnage, but can she ever trust Koenig and the other humans?

The Doctor arrives on a distant world populated by two tribes, the Sevateem and the Tesh. He quickly bumps into a Sevateem woman named Leela, who has been banished from her village for denying the existence of Xoanon – an entity whom the Sevateem worship as a god. The Doctor can only stand by helplessly as the Sevateem mount a suicidal attack upon the more advanced Tesh. The Doctor soon realizes that these primitives are the descendants of an interstellar exploration detail: the survey team and the technicians. Both tribes recognize and revere him as the Evil One…but despite the bloodshed, no one will allow him to go near Xoanon, a sentient computer whose tyrannical rule is a result of the Doctor’s past interference.

written by Chris Boucher
directed by Pennant Roberts
music by Dudley Simpson

Varian, Scott, Liana and Fred arrive in a windswept desert through the portal; shortly afterward, Sil-L, the cat with whom Liana shares a telepathic bond, arrives too. But they soon run into a new problem – a pulsating red cloud, not dissimilar from the green cloud that stranded them on the island. The men wind up in a swamp, surrounded by green-skinned people who seek help for their malaria-stricken leader, while Liana finds herself in a compound populated by attractive people in identical jumpsuits. She meets Professor Willaway, who seems to rule over these people, and he is instantly smitten with Liana, deciding that she must stay to marry him, whether she wants to or not. All of his “sons” and companions turn out to be androids, originally built by the species that has been forced into the swamp; Willaway, a radical scientist from 1963, reprogrammed all of the androids to serve him. But his desire for human companionship is driving him from radical to treacherous. When Fred, Varian and Scott leave the swamp and find their way to Willaway’s village, Varian quickly realizes that their inquiries about Liana’s whereabouts are being answered with lies. And no longer hampered by their leader’s health, the beings who created the androids are now returning to reclaim what is rightfully theirs, leaving Willaway to seek refuge with Varian’s group.

written by Harold Livingston
directed by Irving J. Moore
music by Robert Prince

Notes: Actor Brian Patrick Clarke is credited as “Brain.” Roddy McDowall joins the show in this episode, playing a part that was written specifically to attract him to the show. His genre credits already included the Planet Of The Apes films and their short-lived TV spinoff. Writer Harold Livingston also penned episodes of Mission: Impossible, Future Cop, The Six Million Dollar Man and the William Shatner series Barbary Coast, but his most famous genre gig was, of course, the unenviable job of coming up with a coherent script for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, a job Livingston didn’t relish as it put him into conflict with Gene Roddenberry (Livingston later claimed that his rewrites were being rewritten and sabotaged by Roddenberry). This episode is contains rare references to the pilot, with Fred comparing the red cloud to the green one in the Bermuda Triangle, and Varian noting that the traveling party is almost as large as the original group of shipwreck survivors. Sil-L conveniently hides for almost the entire duration of the episode, appearing only at the beginning and the end; presumably he was marking his territory in Willaway’s outdoor planters the rest of the time.

The TARDIS encounters a huge, fibrous mass in space, and as it attempts to pass through the obstruction, a violent discharge from the central console knocks the Doctor out. He manages to set a course for a medical outpost, the Bi-Al Foundation. Barely able to explain the Doctor’s predicament, Leela leaves the Time Lord in the capable hands of Dr. Marius, a brilliant but eccentric pathologist (he has fashioned his portable computer in the shape of a dog and christened it K-9). But whatever affected the Doctor soon spreads to others at Bi-Al, and the Doctor is now clearly the center of a hive mind directing the actions of the infected. The fight to save the doctors and nurses at Bi-Al is a losing battle; the Doctor and Leela must take the fight to the source of the problem: inside the Doctor’s own body!

written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
directed by Derrick Goodwin
music by Dudley Simpson

.The Doctor’s TARDIS is diverted to an unknown place. Upon landing, the Doctor meets the White Guardian, a being more powerful than even the Time Lords, who has chosen the Doctor to retrieve the six missing segments of the Key To Time, which will supposedly restore time and space to a more balanced state. With a new version of K9 up and running, the Doctor is keen to undertake this adventure alone, but again, the Guardian chooses a new companion for the Doctor, a Time Lady named Romanadvortrelundar.

The search for the first of the Key To Time’s six segments leads the Doctor, K9 and Romana to an unlikely place for such an item: the backwards planet Ribos. The natives are wrapped up in superstition and tradition, and they’re largely unaware that their planet is being targeted for takeover by the mad exiled warlord Graff Vynda-K. But even the Graff is being targeted on Ribos by a pair of con men who hope he’ll pay handsomely for directions which will supposedly lead him to a lost mine containing enough of the mineral jethrik to fund his operation. And when everyone’s plans are exposed, they believe the Doctor and Romana are the responsible party.

It’s Wayne Randall’s first day on the job as the assistant chief conductor aboard Supertrain…but when chief conductor Harry Flood comes down with the mumps and is confined to the isolation room in Dr. Lewis’ on-board clinic, Wayne finds himself in charge of the train. He tries to keep things running smoothly as new Supertrain social director Penny Whitaker puts the finishing touches on a major charity event…but then has to deal with a few minor problems, such as a would-be jewel thief…and an engine meltdown that could turn Supertrain into a fast-moving nuclear bomb with passangers.

teleplay by Jeff Wilhelm
story by Brad Radnitz and Robert Stambler and Jeff Wilhelm
directed by Dennis Donnelly
music by Bob Cobert

Notes: More big changes are afoot in this episode of Supertrain, with the addition of Ilene Graff and Joey Aresco as new regulars, along with a constellation of guest stars including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lyle Waggoner (Wonder Woman), Peter Lawford (The Thin Man, Ocean’s 11), Abe Vigoda (Barney Miller), and Sally Kirkland. Herman Zimmerman – formerly of Far-Out Space Nuts, and later the architect of the Star Trek spinoffs‘ ship interiors – joins the show as production designer. Supertrain!

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Romana to a desolate wasteland of a planet, one whose atmosphere is so radioactive that it can be toxic even to Time Lords without proper precautions – the post-atomic-war Skaro, home world of the Daleks. When the two are separated, Romana is trailed by a disheveled human. Convinced that he means her harm, she runs right into a barely-buried chute that deposits her underground in the waiting arms of the Daleks themselves. The Doctor meets the attractive humanoid crew of a nearby space vessel, who call themselves Movellans. At war with the spacefaring Daleks for centuries, the Movellans have followed their enemies back to Skaro to prevent them from unearthing a “secret weapon”: Davros, whose life support system was damaged but not disabled, has apparently survived in a dormant state. His more emotional, cunning strategies could give the Daleks the edge. The Movellans hope that the Doctor and Romana can give them the same edge – and worst of all, the two Time Lords aren’t exactly being given a choice about replacing the Movellans’ battle computers.

The Liberator is damaged heavily in the ensuing war and starts away from the main battles. The life support system begins to fail and the crew must abandon ship. Avon is knocked out when debris from a hit near the life capsule launch area collapses on him, and Cally and Vila get him into a capsule. Landing on the planet Serran, Avon is saved from vicious natives by a young woman called Dayna, who takes him to her father’s underwater home base. On the way there, they encounter Servalan, who has deposed the High Council, declared herself President, and has topped all this by getting herself marooned. Servalan attempts to seduce Avon, but he resists and uses Orac to signal the Liberator. In an attempt to steal Orac and slip away, Servalan is stopped by Dayna’s blind father, who is killed by Servalan. Dayna vows vengeance and she and Avon set out to find Servalan. After “rescuing” Servalan from the restless natives, Avon recovers Orac, and with Dayna he returns to the Liberator when it arrives, while Servalan hides away in the undersea installation. On returning to the ship, Avon and Dayna find a full squad of Federation shock troops in control…

written by Terry Nation
directed by Vere Lorrimer
music by Dudley Simpson

Weighed down by gambling debts, Nick Stoner is a rarity: an heir to an oil fortune who’s out of money. His sober-minded brother Dean runs the family business, and has bailed Nick out of trouble repeatedly. But someone else knows about this dynamic: Quaid zeroes in on Nick, offering to clear all of his debts permanently. All Rick has to do is sign over the entire oil operation to Quaid, and he happily signs his name since, as only half-heir, the family fortune isn’t his to give away – the agreement is invalid. It’s not until later that he realizes that a hit will now be out on Dean; if his brother dies mysteriously, Nick really has handed Stoner Oil over to Quaid. John Moore and Delos are contacted, since Quaid almost certainly has robots in place to carry out the hit on Dean. With Special Agent Pam Williams helping undercover, Moore has to figure out which member of a pro football team owned by Dean Stoner is the killer.

teleplay by Lou Shaw
story by Howard Dimsdale
directed by Rod Holcomb
music by George Romanis

Notes: Replacing the female lead in this first post-pilot episode is future Greatest American Hero co-star Connie Sellecca. Her character has a past with Moore (apparently both a working and a romantic past) and a past with Quaid (from prior work at Delos). Former Dobie Gillis star and game show host Bobby Van makes one of his final appearances here, shortly before his death of a malignant brain tumor in July 1980 (he had been diagnosed in 1979 and continued working). One of the former stars of Wagon Train, Denny Miller (1934-2014) also appeared in Voyagers!, Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Quark, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica, and the original V miniseries. Real football players Anthony Davis (formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the L.A. Rams and the Houston Oilers) and Delvin Williams (San Francisco 49ers, Green Bay Packers, Miami Dolphins) appear as members of Dean Stoner’s unspecified (but presumably pro) football team.

The Doctor and Romana are en route back to Gallifrey when something strange happens to the TARDIS. Though it takes time for them to realize it, the TARDIS has fallen through a kind of wormhole into the alternate universe of E-space. Instead of Gallifrey, the Doctor has arrived on Alzarius, a planet whose small humanoid population is threatened by the onset of a deadly mist. During the time of mistfall, legend has it that spiders emerge from the indigenous fruit and deadly creatures appear. A troubled kid named Adric is trapped outside during mistfall, but stumbles into the TARDIS and befriends the Doctor and Romana. The Doctor soon finds that the horrific creatures that roam Alzarius during mistfall are more closely related to the besieged humanoids than either party realizes.

written by Andrew Smith
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Paddy Kingsland

Buck, Wilma and Twiki have been reassigned to the deep-space exploration ship Searcher on a mission to search for any colonies that may have been established by humans who escaped Earth around the time of the holocaust. Their first evidence of human colonists, however, is a primitive ship found adrift, its hull shattered and all but one of its crew dead. The lone survivors warns Buck with his last breath that someone called “Hawk” is on a mission to exterminate every human, every human ship, and every human colony he can find. The survivor gives them one tip about where Hawk might be found, and the Searcher changes its course so Buck can follow up on the lead. A neutral planet turns out to be the current lair of Hawk, and Buck asks Wilma to meet him there; against her better judgement, Wilma brings a passenger along: Dr. Goodfellow, the Searcher’s elderly but brilliant chief scientist.

Buck doesn’t find Hawk, but he does find Hawk’s mate, Koori, half-human and half-bird, and bets that if he takes Koori with him, Hawk will follow. Hawk does indeed catch up with Buck, grappling the earthman’s starfighter with the harpoon-like claws of his own ship – but impaling Koori in the process. Both ships land, and Buck helps Hawk take Koori to a healer who lives in a distant cave on the planet, both men postponing their fight until she can be saved. Hawk tells Buck that he and Koori are the last of their kind, hunted to extinction by humans, and that his fight is just. Buck tries to tell Hawk that the actions of human colonists don’t necessarily reflect the current state of humanity on Earth, but Hawk is not swayed – when Koori is either restored to health or laid to rest, Hawk and Buck will fight to the death.

Notes: Crichton admits, somewhat reluctantly, that he obeys Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, and even more begrudgingly admits that an ancestor of Admiral Asimov wrote those laws. The Crichton prop first appeared early in the first season, but as a large clock instead of a robot. Twiki’s voice was replaced for part of this season as part of the sweeping changes introduced by new executive producer John Mantley, but eventually Mel Blanc was brought back to provide Twiki’s voice.

The dying Keeper of the harmonious Union of Traken summons the Doctor to help his world as his reign comes to a close. Normally the Keeper would never summon outside help, but in this case an otherworldly evil is slowly preparing to take control of the Union, and otherworldly help will be needed to defeat it. But as betrayals and complacency allow a malignant alien to assume the Keepership – and with it enormous power – the Doctor is slow to realize that this particular adversary is known to him personally. Though he is able to preserve Traken’s people, the Doctor is unaware that his greatest adversary has gained a new lease on life.

After he takes complete measurements of a British Police Box, the inspiration for the exterior appearance of the TARDIS, the Doctor plans to visit Logopolis to seek the help of the mathematical geniuses there, whose near-mystic incantations of intricate mathematical formulas actually keep the universe from dying a premature death. Thanks to the interference of the Master, the Doctor becomes trapped, and an Australian stewardess named Tegan wanders into the TARDIS, assuming it to be a real Police Box. The Doctor also receives a distress call from Nyssa, whose father has gone missing on Traken. A mysterious ghostly figure appears and disappears, but the Doctor remains silent as to its identity, and the Master finally emerges from the shadows on Logopolis, poised to destroy the universe by eliminating its guardians. All the while, the TARDIS cloister bell counts down last remaining hours of the Doctor’s fourth life.

written by Christopher H. Bidmead
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Paddy Kingsland

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